Eventually Closer
by Lykegenia
Summary: The dance of time is a slow one, and reincarnation often runs in circles. One, the avatar, destined to bring peace. Two, the yin-yang, the force of balance destined to keep it. Every nation has a story of two lovers who defy war to end it, and Katara doesn't know why, but every time she hears them, her eyes stray to those of a certain fire prince. Written for Zutara Week.
1. Earth

Entry for Zutara Week 2014: 'slow dancing'. Not really much dancing, but hopefully you'll see what I'm getting at (because I totally didn't just need an excuse to write this down). As always, I own nothing of this franchise, but I can always dream.

* * *

The people around their campsite now numbered ten. There were so many of them that they had had to alter the structure of their fire – Hakoda, Toph, Sokka and Chit Sang had ventured into the jungle and brought back whole trees for them to burn. As she cooked, the merry blaze reminded Katara of a long-ago time before the Fire Nation raid on her village, before the warriors left, when the whole village would gather in the long house on winter nights to tell stories. The sight of her father pondering the flames with his chin cupped in his fist, Sokka and Suki draped over each other like newly cured tigerseal pelts, Toph teaching Haru to play an earthbending game ("Honestly, Pebbles, how have you never played Earth-king Me before?"), filled her with a deep sort of comfort she hadn't realised she'd been missing in all the fracas surrounding the invasion.

Wait. Ten. Someone was missing.

She spotted his form half-hidden by a pillar, facing away from the fire and out over the quiet night. In the first days after he had joined their group she might have been suspicious of such behaviour – was he looking for Fire Nation allies? Plotting a way to capture Aang and betray them all?

Now though, after everything he had done, she found it harder to dance around the notion that he wasn't quite the monster her heart wanted to vilify, that his actions now were every bit as sincere as that crystal moment in the Catacombs of Ba Sing Se, when he had quietly insisted that the Fire Nation had taken _his_ mother, too. When he could easily have kidnapped Aang on the way to the Sun Warrior city, he had been found worthy by dragons and taught the avatar firebending. And how could she ever repay what he had done to help Sokka rescue her father? She hadn't needed her brother's little pep talk to 'lay off the guy and give him a chance' to know that she owed the young firebender a lot more than she would have been comfortable with a few months ago.

"Zuko?" she asked, stepping away from the heat and the light. She ought to swallow her pride. "It's kinda cold over here, don't you want to come sit by the fire?"

It took a moment for him to answer, perhaps because, like her, he was trying to process the unaccustomed gentleness in her voice, but because his back was turned she couldn't be sure.

"I'm watching for airships," he told her finally.

A spike of worry reared up in her belly before she could squash it down. "Why?"

He turned to face her, muscled arms folded over his broad chest, his good eyebrow pulled down in a frown. The firelight cast sharp shadows on the sharp plane of his cheeks and made the gold of his eyes dance… but Katara pretended not to notice that.

His shoulders relaxed. "It's Azula." His voice came in a tired rasp. "When we escaped the Boiling Rock we didn't just evade her, we humiliated her. She won't stop until she finds us."

"It must be a family trait, then," she joked, but her smile faltered at the sudden guilt marring his features. She tried again. "Look, standing around worrying won't help. When – when you were chasing us, we didn't waste time worrying when you would show up, not because we _weren't_ worried, but because we knew to have any chance of beating you we'd have to be fed and rested. We have Appa to warn us about approaching airships, and nobody's going to sneak past Toph if they come overland."

"But –"

"Dinner's ready," she continued firmly. "I made enough for everyone."

A little smile, like the first ray of Spring in the South, lit his features as he thanked her, and Katara's stomach lurched slightly to see it. To avoid the implications of such a feeling, she turned and marched back to the group to begin ladling out rice. Aang had just scootered in to place next to Teo and the Duke, and was sat listening to Sokka's fifth retelling of his heroic escape from the Boiling Rock.

"And there she was, all sad and prisoner-y, but I could spot her a mile away, and I knew that nothing would ever stop me from getting her out," he was saying, a soppy, heavy-lidded look on his face.

"That actually sounds kind of romantic, Snoozles," Toph interrupted from her position resting against her bedroll. Beating Haru at Earth-king Me had clearly been too easy for her.

He pouted. "Don't act so surprised. I'm all about romance. You weren't there when we had to take that secret love tunnel under the mountains."

Katara snorted. "I was. We only went that way because the Fire Nation was after us – you hated the idea that we would have to 'trust in love' to find the way out."

"No, I hated the fact that those crazy nomads had no idea what they were doing!"

"What secret love tunnel?" Suki asked as she took a bowl of rice and steaming curry from Katara.

Aang answered. "The one that leads to Omashu. See, there was a man and a woman, who -"

Sokka cleared his throat loudly. "Don't you think the guy who brought it up should tell the story?"

"Oh, right, sorry Sokka," Aang apologised. "I just got carried away – it was a very special place, and…" As he trailed off, a blush deepened on his cheeks and he glanced at Katara. She studiously ignored him and handed a bowl to her father, who took it with a nod of thanks. For the past few weeks their interactions had become like this, a sort of dance where he hinted at liking her and then lost courage and she, preoccupied with winning the war and keeping the avatar on track, found the path of least resistance, like water, and pretended she did not understand. She hoped nobody caught the slight stiffening of her shoulders at Aang's allusion to their almost-kiss, but when she handed Zuko his bowl he was looking at her with a strange expression on his face, as if trying to work out the solution a riddle that did not really have an answer.

"If you mean it was a freaky, disturbing place we should never have to see again," Sokka was saying, "Then I agree."

Suki swallowed a mouthful of rice. "Come on, guy, don't leave me hanging. What's the story?"

"It's not much of a story," Toph scoffed. "Two lovers, blah blah, One of them gets killed, city named Omashu, blah blah. The only good bit is when that chick crushes the entire army with her earthbending – now that's a role model."

"What did I just say?" Sokka demanded, jabbing a thumb into his chest. "I brought it up, I get to tell it!"

"My apologies, your bardliness. Please, enchant us all with your fabulous storytelling ability."

"You know, I'm kinda getting the feeling you're not taking this seriously," the Water Tribe boy sniffed.

"What gave you that idea?"

"Well, I for one would like to hear," said Hakoda, deciding to intervene now before he would have to physically separate the pair. Sokka beamed at him. After stuffing a large spoonful of curry into his mouth, and with a pensive expression wrinkling his brow, he began.

"Once upon a time -"

"That's a promising start."

"Toph!"

"Well, it's not."

"Ahem. Once upon a time there were two villages at war. The only reason they didn't destroy each other was because they were divided by a mountain. It's difficult to get an army over a mountain. One day, a young woman was picking flowers when she had the urge to see what was on the other side, to see if her village's enemies were really the monsters they had been painted. At the top, she stumbled across a guy from the enemy village, a hunter who had been chasing a hog-monkey when he lost his way. The two were immediately attracted to each other and, after spending some time talking, agreed to meet again.

"Every day they came to the same place and fell in love, and went walking in the mountains where they could forget the war. This is where they found the badgermoles. The badgermoles took to the young lovers and taught them earthbending, and they build a labyrinth of tunnels so they could meet in secret without worrying about being discovered."

The hush around the campfire seemed to writhe like a living thing. Sokka seemed almost surprised that he had become the focus of such rapt attention, and chased away the uncertainty with a nervous swig of lychee juice.

"Come on, Sokka, what happened then?" Suki asked as she leaned into him. Echoes followed, egging him to continue.

"I'm pausing for dramatic effect," Sokka informed them.

Katara only half-listened. She was buried in memories of the tomb, of the mural that said love was strongest in the dark. The story stirred something in her, though when she tried to grasp at precisely what that feeling was, it slipped like sand through her fingers. At the time, lost and afraid with Aang by her side, she had thought it was merely the weight of the rock above pressing down on her fears. He was looking at her now, under cover of his eyelashes, trying to catch her eye. She plucked a stick from the pile of kindling and poked the fire, frowning.

Could it be… memory…?

"Just get to the good bit, Snoozles, we haven't got all night!"

The Water Tribe boy rolled his eyes. "Fine. Where was I?"

"They were happy and kissing and stuff. Go."

"Oh yeah. So, they spent many happy months that way, sneaking off into their secret love cave to make out. But one day a conscript came through the man's village and took him to fight on the front line. By the time the woman heard about it, he had already been killed. In her grief, she flattened the mountain between their villages, and ordered the war to stop. Well, they didn't really feel like arguing with her. She united them, and they built a city where she kept the peace until her death. Because the woman's name was Oma and the man's name was Shu, the city was named Omashu to commemorate the enduring power of love." His eyes went soppy again and he smiled goofily at Suki.

"Wow, Sokka, you remembered more of that story than I thought," said Aang. The avatar scratched the back of his bald head and blushed. "I thought you were too busy getting annoyed with those nomads to pay any attention to it."

"Hey, I can multitask."

Toph stretched and sat up. "What were the rest of you guys doing, if you weren't getting annoyed by nomads?"

"We got split up in a rockslide," Katara explained.

"Shame I wasn't there - I'd have got us out no problem."

"No, it was a good thing," Aang insisted. "Because we got separated, Katara and I found where the two lovers were buried."

"Sounds creepy."

"Their whole story was written at the base of this huge platform, and there was a giant mural that said 'love is strongest in the dark.' And Katara and I…" he trailed off and peeked at her again, but she spoke over him.

"It gave us a clue to finding the way out. We had to douse our torch and the ceiling lit up with glowing crystals." No way was she going to have Aang blurting out that they had almost kissed, especially when, on her part at least, it had been an act of desperation - not with her father, Sokka, and Zuko (Zuko?) listening in.

"Wow, Sugar Queen, it must have been one exciting love tunnel. Your heart rate just picked up big time." Toph was grinning.

"No, not really. It was kinda boring once you got over the whole 'we might never see the sun again' part."

"Do I have to remind you every time that I can tell when you're lying?"

Katara's cheeks flamed but she declined to answer. She wasn't lying. At the time, kissing Aang had been… well it had been nice, but also kind of weird, brought on by circumstances, and now her only worry was that he had taken more away from it than that. The feeling prodded her again as she stirred the flames, and by chance she looked up and saw Zuko.

The expression on his face mirrored hers.


	2. Fire

Sunset flared across the bay of Ember Island, which at one time had been the rim of a massive caldera, or so Zuko told her when they flew in on Appa. The sea glittered and herring-gulls wheeled in the sky in a beauty that belied the war of smoke and flame that had raged across the archipelago for a hundred years. She could barely look beyond the rim of Appa's saddle, because if she saw the rim of the vast horizon and all the beauty it contained, she would have to reconcile the peace to the hunger it produced in the hearts of men just following orders. Men like Yon Rha, who were hollow as rotten trees.

"We're here," Zuko announced.

Unfocussed, it took her a moment to register the pattern of the sky bison's meandering descent to what looked like an abandoned temple complex on a secluded bend of sand. Appa flumped into a courtyard overgrown with weeds, the fountain clogged with detritus from many years of neglect, but even through her exhaustion, Katara could feel the will of the water to rise to the surface. She took in the gaps like old teeth in the roof where shingles should be, the rice paper screens ripped through by rainy season typhoons. The sun had sunk low enough to leave the whole place in shadow, giving it a chill she hoped had nothing to do with ghosts.

"What is this place?" she asked.

"Abandoned," he replied shortly, though his gaze when he looked at her showed a cautious concern. "You unload our gear, I'll find some wood and get a fire started."

She liked that he didn't offer to do everything for her, or to help her. He seemed to understand that for her, _doing_ was preferable to _not doing_. Still, this worn out old building gave her the creeps. Now she could see it clearly, she could tell it wasn't a temple but a domestic building, a grand palace for some Fire Nation noble, and despite its sad, sorry atmosphere, she had learned not to trust what her eyes told her. She jumped as a sudden loud crack rent the still air, but it was only Zuko, kicking a doorframe to splinters.

"How do you know this place is abandoned?" she asked him when he returned.

The firewood clattered dully onto the courtyard floor and ignited with a soft _fwoosh_ from Zuko's fist. "Trust me, Katara, Nobody's been here for years."

"But how can you _know_? I know this place looks derelict, but what if somebody comes back?"

He sighed and crouched on the sleeping roll she had spread out for him. "My family hasn't come here since we were happy, and that was about seven years ago," he told her. "That's how I know."

"Your -? So this is…?"

"The Fire Lord's summer retreat," he said with a grim smile. "I hope you appreciate the irony."

For most of the night, they didn't talk. They ate their rations in silence. Above them, the night wheeled, but the brightness of the flames dulled the cold fire of the stars and Katara found herself inching closer to Zuko as thick darkness closed in about her.

"Are you okay?" he asked her when she shivered for the third time.

She did not look at him, but stared at the flickering embers. "A bit stiff maybe. And cold. I keep seeing his face." Without even registering the wetness on her cheeks she dashed the tears away.

"I could help," he suggested. "I mean, not with… him, but if you like, I can, er, warm you up a bit."

She blinked slowly and settled her eyes on his face. "How?"

"Come here."

With the huge, dim presence of Appa at her back she shuffled the final feet to the firebender's side, until she could feel the heat of his body through the fabric of her clothes. When he placed his hands, hot with inner heat, on her shoulders, she tensed, but then the slow movements of his fingers into her sore muscles began their work and she closed her eyes in contentment.

"Tell me a story, Zuko," she asked after a few moments. The lick of flames at the wood and the press of warmth at her back made her think of childhood comfort, a feeling at once delicious and painful.

"What kind of story?" he murmured.

"A Fire Nation story. Something old, like a fairy tale."

When he didn't reply, she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Her breath stilled. Like on that night in the Air Temple what seemed like weeks ago now, the low light gleamed on his pale skin, deepening the hollow of his jaw, but it was his eyes that caught her; they glazed with distance, and she realised he saw the house around them not in its current form, but as it was when happiness had been a tangible thing here.

"There is one," he mused. "It's got two different endings. Depending on who you ask."

"Will you tell it?"

He smiled at the soft childishness in her voice. "If you want." He drew her in closer and she clung to him, taking comfort in the hard feel of his chest against her shoulder, the rough hiss of cloth dragging over cloth.

"Once, before the Fire Nation was little more than a collection of remote islands peopled by simple fishermen and farmers, on the night of a great festival, the Lord of a noble house in the East held a great banquet for the whole village. The lanterns were bright and the music so enchanting that even the village on the other side of the island could see the spectacle glimmer over the rim of the volcano that separated them. The two villages had been enemies for years, as both shared the same fishing grounds and thought their way if life better.

"The young lord of the Western house thought it would be great sport to sneak into the party and cause havoc among the guests, so he untied his junk and sailed it across the water.

"There were many beautiful things being served at the feast - exotic fruits and great beasts imported from far away - that the young lord had only seen once or twice in his life. But it was not until he beheld the daughter of the Eastern house that he truly felt breathless. Her beauty and grace captivated him, but when he saw her eyes, full of sharp intelligence, he knew he had been caught.

"She could have turned him in, but she was curious about him, about life beyond her village, so they walked together in the gardens amidst the glowing lanterns and the fireflies and talked of adventure, and eventually… of love. They agreed to meet again, and after that they spent as many days together as they could.

"But the animosity between their villages grew until the daughter of the Eastern house forbade her lover to come to her, because he might get caught. Undeterred, the young lord climbed the highest mountain on the island and begged audience with the dragon who lived there, seeking some way to be with the one he loved. The dragon took pity on him and taught him how to firebend, but warned him about the power of the gift.

"Full of himself, the young lord returned to the daughter of the Eastern House, and everything carried on as before.

"But the lady's brother grew suspicious, and one night he waited for the young lord, and leaped out, thinking to capture him and take him as a valuable hostage. He did not know the young lord could firebend, and he was burned so badly the pain of it drove him mad. Hearing the commotion, the compound's guards discovered the enemy in camp and chained him in the stone vault where he could not escape. The Lord of the Eastern house decided there would be a trial of courtesy and then an execution, which would give him the excuse to annihilate his enemies.

"Distraught, the daughter of the Eastern house came up with a plan. She climbed the mountain and begged the dragon for firebending. It took much persuading but eventually the dragon acquiesced and taught her what she wanted. She took the knowledge back down to her father and, in front of her entire family, declared that it had been _she _who had killed her brother, as an accident. And she showed them her command of fire in order to prove it, demanding that they set the young lord free."

Zuko fell silent, his gaze deep within the embers of their own fire. As he told the story, he had shifted almost so his chin now rested above her ear. He exhaled and the flames leapt higher, glowing fingers questing for every fibre of raw wood left to burn.

"What happened then?" Katara asked, almost lulled to sleep by the steady sound of his voice. "Zuko?"

A sigh huffed from his mouth and he gazed at the familiar shadows of the house. "Like I said, there are two different endings. The official one is that the Lord of the Eastern house presented evidence that the young Lord of the West was a spy. When confronted with it, the lady realised that her loyalty lay to her family, so she sided with her father and destroyed the enemy village with her firebending." He paused, and his arms tightened infinitesimally on Katara's waist. "She betrayed him," he told her in a heavy voice.

She twisted and stared up at him, her eyes shining in the night. She remembered the peace of a glowing cave shattered by fire and steam, row upon row of faceless Dai Li, and him standing shoulder to shoulder with his sister, the pinpoint focus of all her despair and helpless rage.

She let the image flow through her like water and away. "You said there were two endings."

He had to swallow before the words would come. "My mother told me another version, once. She said that the display of devotion the daughter of the Eastern house displayed compelled everyone in the trial room to beg for mercy on her behalf, and, inspired by their love, the two houses united and ended the war." Still he would not look at her, though now the bright gold of his eyes was shuttered by that all-too familiar guilt.

Gently, like holding her hand for a polar beardog puppy to sniff, Katara reached upward and tugged his chin gently between her fingers. The memory lingered in her skin, the smooth feel of the scar and the warmth of his cheek and such sadness it echoed from every pore of his being.

"I think that's the right ending," she told him firmly. "It fits."

His eyes held indiscernible secrets, but they locked on hers without fear, sharp enough to scorch the breath in her lungs.

And then the weight of the war returned to press its weight on their minds and the moment passed, and Katara slipped past his lips and instead rested her head on his shoulder.

"I prefer that ending, too," she thought he whispered in the moment before sleep claimed her.


	3. Air

To an outsider, they might have seemed like any ordinary group of teenagers with nothing to do. Arranged in a circle, tension bounced from one to the other in subtle lines passed along with glances and curt gestures of the hands, while around them, broken and charred, a field of boulders and a lopsided scarecrow littered the battlefield.

Finally, Aang could take no more. "I'm sorry, alright! I just can't do it."

Sokka levelled a very cold, un-Sokka like stare at the young monk. "Really? Cos it sounds to me like you _won't_ do it."

"The monks taught me that every life is sacred - even the Fire Lord's." Aang's shoulders slumped.

Zuko sat cross-legged with his elbows on his knees. "I can guarantee you Ozai doesn't share your airy-fairy love of life," he said quietly, and pointed to his scar. His gaze bored into the avatar's, brimming with dangerous sparks. "_He_ did this to me - to his own _son _\- and when Sozin's Comet comes, he'll do much worse to the Earth Kingdom. But hey…" He shrugged. "I'm sure the people of Omashu will understand as they're all being burned to cinders."

Aang flinched.

Katara laid a smooth hand on Zuko's arm, warning him with a glance. "You know he's right, Aang. The whole world is counting on you to defeat the Fire Lord and bring balance back -"

"I know what I have to do, okay! There just has to be another way."

"There isn't." Her voice had stilled to the impenetrable cold of the tundra. "You have to do this, for all of us."

He scowled and refused to meet her eyes, looking so much like a put-upon child that she felt a momentary stab of sympathy in the pit of her stomach. Children shouldn't know war. But that thought brought back her rage. She had been at war since her fourth summer, she had grown up and never known a proper childhood. She had killed, and he had killed, and now he was refusing on _moral_ grounds when the consequences would be so much worse.

Before she could let loose, however, Toph intervened. It amused her to watch everyone arguing like their elements - Sparky direct and merciless, Sugar Queen smoothly, but still as cutting - but now it was time for her to plonk some truth down to make them stop dancing round the issue to spare the air-kid's feelings, or the discussion would go on forever.

"Look, Twinkletoes, it's no good dodging around this issue. It's like earthbending. You just have to grit your teeth and get on with it." The young earthbender paused and dragged a ragged breath through her teeth. "You think any of us want to be here? I - and I can't quite believe I'm saying this - I wanna go home and see my folks. Sugar Queen and Snoozles probably want to just go back to the South Pole with their dad. But that's an ideal world, and not the one we're living in. We all signed up for this."

"I didn't," Aang muttered into his staff.

"Too bad," Suki snapped. "You're the world's last hope. If you knew you were going to get squeamish and try to wriggle out of it you should have told us and saved us all a lot of bother. Maybe then my village wouldn't have burned down." Her eyes cracked like flint and Aang found himself unable to hold her gaze, but as he looked around, desperate for an ally, only mirrors of tempered steel glared back.

"You guys don't understand. It goes against everything in Air Nomad philosophy. Right back to my people's roots we never used our bending for offensive fighting. There's a story about the first airbenders. They were Gyan and Li Su, and they came from the same village, though he was a poor merchant son and she was of a high rank. Every day they would sneak into the mountains and play with the sky bison and learn from a wise guru. Because they were from different classes they couldn't be together, but when they were in the mountains, it didn't matter, and they could."

"Get to the point, Aang." Katara wanted to shake away the small tingle that had formed at the base of her spine as she heard those names.

The airbender sighed. "Their people started a war with another, and the headman of the village found out about the airbending. He ordered his soldiers to capture the sky bison so they could be turned into weapons, but before they could, Gyan and Li Su took the sky bison away and became nomads. But through their travels they saw the extent of war and they decided to teach others their wisdom to bring peace to the world."

"What happened to the people left behind?" Sokka asked, his arms folded across his chest.

"Well, when the villagers saw their devotion to each other, they decided to make peace with their enemies."

"But what _happened_ to them? Because I'm pretty sure it wasn't as happy go lucky as you're making it out."

For a moment, Aang couldn't speak. He couldn't lie, but the truth would be twisted and sucked up into their argument like a leaf into a tornado.

"That's what I thought," Zuko concluded, disgust curling the corner of his mouth.

"What about you, Katara? Surely you understand why I can't do it?" the airbender almost pleaded, changing tack with all the versatility of his element.

She stared into her lap as she answered. "All I understand is that you are refusing to face this. Maybe there is another way to defeat Ozai without killing him, but the comet is only three days away, and we've run out of alternatives. We have no choice."

"Violence isn't the answer! You didn't kill Yon Rha," he pointed out.

The speed with which her eyes snapped up to meet his could have caused sparks. "Yon Rha was a sad old man, not a maniac intent on committing genocide," she growled.

"It's still not right," he insisted. "In the story, Gyan and Su Li loved each other. Katara, you know how I feel about you -"

Suddenly she towered over him, one hand fisted at her side and the other reaching up to touch the necklace at her throat. "And you know what the Fire Nation took from me! How dare you be so selfish? How many more families will have to be torn apart before your conscience wakes up and decides to do the right thing?"

"Katara, I'm sorry."

"I don't want an apology," she snapped. "Problems aren't solved by running away from them, especially not if they have the power to kill a lot of people." For a moment she stood, quivering like a tsunami holding itself back from the shore, before she managed to master herself. Instead of Aang, the drops of water she spun out of the air whirled with terrifying speed and sliced a boulder clean in two. When Aang made to go after her, Zuko caught hold of his arm.

"Uncle once told me that in order to keep a plant healthy, it is sometimes necessary to cut out parts of it that have become diseased. You have to be ruthless, or the disease will come back and infect everything else." He glanced away, something softening in his eyes as he took in the hunch of Katara's retreating shoulders. "I'll go talk to her. You need to make a decision, because if you can't do what we've been training you for, then we're going to have to think of a new plan."


	4. Water

The presence or absence of light was meaningless in the never-ending gloom of Katara's thoughts, the endless cycle of worry and healing that had consumed her for three days. Exhausted, she lay on the softest bed she had ever not-slept on, her hair splayed over the pillow as she cradled Zuko's head to her chest. Her free hand worked over the wound in his chest, feeling for the veins and pathways of qi that refused to knit together, despite her coaxing. How could she have thought otherwise, without spirit water to heal Azula's lightning? He had seemed fine, had stood up and stood tall, but then everything had slowed to a dim crawl as he hunched and collapsed and sighed what she had feared would be his last breath in this world.

La, she never wanted to hear that sound again.

Stirring from a doze, she brushed a few silky lines of hair from his forehead and pressed a kiss, there, though the action made her blush and worry that she had no right to do any such thing at all.

"Please live," she begged him quietly. "I don't know what the world will do if you don't." Her voice sounded strange in the muffled silence of the room, but she drew strength from it, and took heart from the thought that maybe he would, too.

"He didn't kill Ozai in the end, you know," she told him. "Your uncle brought the news yesterday. He's really worried about you, but he's busy organising everything - recalling the soldiers, making up delegations to send for peace talks. He says you won't give up without a fight." His hair had the soft feel of turtle-duck down between her fingers. "He didn't have to tell me that - I've always known you were more stubborn than an Arctic camel. You chased us all around the world, remember? You can't die now."

She awoke some time later, not realising until she did that she had dozed off again. The dark circles she knew must hang beneath her eyes were a small price to pay for his life - did his heartbeat feel a little stronger?

A servant glided in with a tray of food and a pot of tea, bowed, and left. The room filled with dove-grey light and brightened until the hot Fire Nation sun peeked over the roof of the palisade outside and dripped copper on the walls. Zuko stirred in his sleep, his brow contracting with pain or effort until she smoothed the lines away. Sunlight had the same effect on his skin as firelight, and the bronze tint to his cheeks brought to mind those long nights at the Western Air Temple, on Ember Island, the day she lost her temper with Aang and he had followed to simply hold her hand and not say anything, counting every moment where she fell for him a little harder. In the South Pole there was a dance where the women started on one side of the room and the men on the other, and they met in the middle and peeled away with great sweeping arcs of the hands. How could she not have seen this coming?

"I had a thought, you know," she told him. "All those stories - Oma and Shu, Gyan and Su Li, the first firebenders - they're a lot like one my mother used to tell me. I'd forgotten it. I don't know if you can hear me, but I think it's important, so I'll tell you anyway.

"In the South, the first waterbender was not the moon. Before people knew about waterbending, everyone lived in one tribe so they would have enough people to hunt the big prey and keep each other comforted in the depths of winter. But one year the whale-sharks didn't come, and there was a famine. The people split into bitter factions and each decided the other was to blame for the lack of food. People became desperate, and in the darkest moment, they turned to eating each other." She swallowed.

"One night, the two best hunters of each faction met each other out on the ice. When the tribe had been united they had been husband and wife, but now, their love had turned to hate. As soon as they saw each other, they fell upon each other, fighting. They were just about to strike the death blow when the ice split beneath them, and the whole ice sheet exploded upwards and nearly cast them into the sea. They sat on a small floe together, too stunned to fight anymore, and watched as two kami rose out of the water, glistening in the moonlight. At first, it looked like the two sea dragons were fighting, but soon the hunters noticed a pattern in the movements as they pushed and pulled the water. It was a mating dance. The hunters began to imitate them and found they could move the water just like the kami. They returned to the villages together and showed how waterbending could be used to hunt and fish, and they ended the famine and brought the two tribes together again. But it wasn't so easy, because they had to teach the rest of the tribe how to waterbend, and they had to keep the peace they had made."

Pins and needles struck up Katara's arm and she shifted to ease the circulation back into the limb. "It's a bit like us," she continued. "The war's over now, but there's still so much to do. And Aang didn't kill Ozai. Azula is still alive. He brought the world into balance but he can't be everywhere, and he can't do everything. We can't just rely on him to keep the peace." She licked her lips, the thoughts in her head whirling too fast for her to voice, too complex for a one-sided conversation. The possibility that she might be a repetition on the cosmic wheel, a karmic remnant of ancient stories, conflicted with her fierce belief in free will. There was too much chance for anything else.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that… destiny is funny, it's like a circle, and we're all just dancing along to the music. The world needs you, and… I can't imagine the world without you in it."

"Katara?" He voice was weak, gravelly from disuse. "Thank you."

In the Jasmine Dragon tea-house in Ba Sing Se, a band played. Ostensibly it was a celebration for all those who had been instrumental in ending the war, the children who had become warriors in order to save the world, but tensions ran high between the guests. Katara and Aang were not speaking, owing to an argument that had begun on his side with an accusation of disloyalty and ended on hers with a demand to know exactly why he thought he was owed her undying love.

"I'm the avatar!" he had shouted.

"That's your problem!"

"If you think I won't have time to be with you, don't worry, you can come with me and -"

"Not everything is about you, Aang. Being the avatar is part of who you are, but it's not an excuse, and it's not a character trait."

"I know the real reason you don't love me. It's Zuko, isn't it? You love him."

"I…"

She was careful to keep Sokka between her and the avatar at all times, but eventually, his veiled, hurt looks and Toph's smug grins chipped too much away from her temper and she felt compelled to step out for air.

A few moments later, a light pair of feet followed her and a rasping, soothing voice asked if she was okay.

She leaned heavily on the balustrade as she answered. "It's nothing really. I had an argument with Aang and he's taking it hard."

"I'm not surprised."

She flashed a frown at Zuko, who looked older suddenly, with the crown of the Fire Nation in his topknot. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"Err… it's just, it was kind of obvious."

"What was, exactly?"

He stepped up next to her, but gingerly, as if he measured the distance between them. "That you didn't feel the same way about each other. That you didn't notice, and that he took your feelings for granted."

She giggled. "That wasn't quite it."

"Then what?" A smile played about his mouth, too.

She turned so her back was to the ebbing sun, so that she could see the detail in his eyes more clearly. She wanted to see his reaction. "Actually, he accused me of being in love with you," she told him lightly, and giggled again when she caught sight of the blush warming his cheeks.

"Accused?" he managed to choke out eventually.

She nodded. "Pretty much. I got annoyed because he confused destiny with free will. You can't be destined to love someone." It was her turn to blush and look away.

Zuko sighed. "No, you can't," and her heart clenched. "But sometimes I think the spirits like to toy with us. My destiny was to be Fire Lord, and I am, but I never thought I'd get here fighting alongside the Avatar. People get put in the path of other people, and the choices they make determine the outcome."

"All those stories," she mused. "Two lovers with war dividing them. They brought peace."

"They did." His hand seemed closer to hers on the balustrade than it had a second ago.

"I think he was right."

"Who?"

"Aang. I think I do love you, Zuko, if that's okay." She dared not look at him, and he said nothing.

Then, from the open doorway: "Oh for the love of badgermoles, Sweetness, just kiss him already!"


End file.
